Survival of the Forgetful
by Kataang9
Summary: I have seen these two amnesia stories: Secret Feelings and Something's wrong with Lightning. They were pretty funny and very interesting. I figured I would make an amnesia story of my own. This takes place during Gran Pulse from my FFXIII: My Version story. Lightning has amnesia and the gang is trying to help her remember. My OC character self, Patrick, is included.
1. The Sparring

**A/N: Lightning and Hope are sparring while the rest of us are just standing back and watching the show. Who do you think is gonna win the match? Lightning or Lightning? Ha ha, just kidding.**

* * *

During our time on Gran Pulse, things have been quite a struggle. This is a very strange and alien world, filled with nothing but wildlife and bloodthirsty creatures that seems to attack us every six seconds. Being l'Cie isn't easy. We are right now working on these Cie'th Stone missions, all of us expect for Hope are doing an okay job. The kid is barely keeping up, and not because of that sickness he suffered earlier. We've been working and fighting all day, the kid is starting to reach his limits.

Lightning is saying that Hope should take it easy, cause she's saying that he's just a kid. There it goes again. Hope is protesting that he's not just some little kid, but that's just how Lightning sees him. She ain't wrong however, he is only 14 while the rest of us are adults.

To prove he isn't just some kid, Hope admitted to challenge Lightning to test his strength. I start to worry about his arrogance of challenging Lightning, she'll obvious cream him and I would pretty much fail my promise to Nora to keep him save. I nearly broke it when that kid almost got stomped by a Adamantortoise. I'm even starting to imagine Lightning and Hope's duel, Lightning's grown fifty feet tall and she stomped her massive boot on top of the exhausted boy.

The duel takes place in the Aggra's Pasture, where we set camp for the night. Lightning and Hope are facing each other at a distance, doing some stretches. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Lightning asks.

"Yes I'm sure!" Hope demands. "I'm not just some little kid, Light! I'll show you!" In his thoughts, he's really saying he's a fool for doing this and he's as good as dead.

Lightning sighs, she takes out her weapon and makes her battle stance. "All right. It's your funeral."

Lightning charges makes the first strike. Hope turns and dodges Lightning's attack, then throws his boomerang at her. Lightning turns, seeing the boomerang at her. It hits her in the head, then flies back to Hope.

The rest of us stand back against the cliff and watch the two of them fight. "So, who do you think is gonna win?" Sazh asks.

"Obviously Lightning." Snow says. "She's gonna cream him."

I cross my arms, barely looking at Snow. "I don't know. Hope maybe young and weak, but he's smart. I think he's gonna win."

Fang just laughs like what I said was some punch line to a joke. "Oh really, honey? Did you forget earlier today when I arm wrestled the kid?"

We all look away staring in space, thinking back to that moment:

_Fang and Hope are sitting at a large stamp, arms out, elbows on the chopped wooden table. Fang and Hope are arm wrestling. Hope was doing it as a way to show he's not a wimp. Fang just wants to do it for the fun of it._

_Hope was pushing Fangs arm with all of his strength, but her arm doesn't move, not even a budge. The warrior isn't even fighting to resist, like her arm is completely numb. Hope now tries to push with two hands, still nothing. He gets off his stand standing on the side to get a better leverage, nothing. Put his leg on the stomp to push with more strength, still nothing._

_Fang yawns, she's starting to grow tiresome. Hope stops pushing, panting to catch his breath. "You done?" Fang asks._

_"Not really." Hope says._

_After a moment of rest, he continues to pull. He pulls Fangs arm until he decided to try his teeth, chewing on her arm. Fang just sighs and rolls her eyes, like that's really gonna do anything. Hope rushes to the other side of the stamp, pounding his fists on her arm. Still no progression. When that fails, he returns to the first position, sitting on his seat using one arm to push._

_In the end, he's tired and exhausted. "Okay...I'm done."_

_Fang shrugged her shoulders, then she pushes Hopes arm with full force. Hope even got cause in the force and was knocked out of his seat and falls to the side. Fang stands up, stands beside Hope and looking down at him. "That's just sad, really."_

_Fang walks over Hope and past him. Hope lays his head down on the soft grass, sighing in shame and defeat._

After our moment of thinking back, I glare at Fang. "Will you stop calling me 'honey'?!" Fang just shrugged her shoulders. "And also, fighting doesn't take brute force. It takes strategy and Hope's best at doing that."

"I'm with Patrick at that." Sazh says. "But I still think Lightning's gonna cream him."

I turn my attention to Sazh. "Thanks a lot, Sazh." I say with disapproval.

"Well, I have faith in Hope, so I think he'll win." Vanille says.

Hope casts his Waterga spells at Lightning as he backs away. Lightning charges directly at Hope, avoiding his spells. When Lightning gets too close, Hope casts an Aerora spell to blow her back. Lightning falls back into the wet grounds, getting soaked.

Lightning gets back on her feet, looking back at Hope. "Is that really the best you've got?" Lightning asks.

"I was just getting started!" Hope says. "Thunderga!"

Lightning realizes what Hope was planning, but was a second too late. Lightning strikes into the waters, electrifying Lightning. We were all amazed at the thousand bolts of electricity, multiplying cause of the water, frying Lightning. In the end, Lightning was partly scorched, smoking and rocking back and forth in a daze until she collapses onto the ground.

"Whoa..." Everyone but me says.

I smirk and turn to Fang. "See? What'd I tell yea?"

Lightning moans as she begins to awake. Lightning slowly gets on her feet. "Oh, I wouldn't be too sure about that." Fang says.

Hope positions himself, ready to strike. But does nothing when he sees Lightning barely standing with her balance. Lightning looks up at Hope. "Impressive...but not good enough."

Lightning holds out her weapon and charges at Hope. Hope casts a Firaga, but Lightning counter attacks with a Watera. The two spells clashes and a large puff of steam explodes. Hope can barely see anything, for the steam too dense to see through it.

"Stealth mode. How clever." Snow says.

"She is a soldier after all." Sazh says.

"But isn't stealth mode more of a ninja thing?" Vanille asks.

"Shh, quiet!" I demand.

Hope looks all around, aware of his surroundings. The mist begins to lighten up, but it's still hard to see. There's no sign of Lightning. A soft rumbling sound happens behind Hope. He quickly turns around and throws his boomerang at the direction. The boomerang just hits the boulder and falls from impact, Hope sees it's nothing.

"Oh, quite the misdirection." Fang says.

Hope seems confused look at the boulder. Lightning leaps out of the mist, weapon out ready to strike. Hope gets an eerie feeling with the presence. He soon realized what it could be. At once, he turns around and unleashes Aeroga, blowing Lightning away with powerful force of winds before she could even hit him.

Lightning is knocked back until she crashes against the wall, head on. All of us were shocked when we see Lightning crashed against the wall. All of us were standing up. "LIGHTNING!?"

All of us quickly rushed over to Lightning. She's laying on the ground unconscious, with blood seeping out of her head. Vanille takes a quick check on her, the impact of the wall caused a cut on her head.

"Oh dear, that's not good." Vanille says.

"Damn, man." Sazh looks at Hope. "I thought you were sparring, not trying to kill her."

"I-I...I didn't mean..." Hope says nothing else, then he looks down at Lightning. "What have I done?"

Snow puts a hand on Hopes shoulder. "Hey, don't worry about it. Lightning's a tough girl, she'll be fine."

I look at Snow and slap him in the back of the head. "How about a little less no-worries and a little more medical-aid. Lightning's in pain, man!" Everyone else agrees with me, and we all carry Lightning back to camp. While we're walking, I grab fang by the arm and we stopped. "By the way...I won the bet. That's 500 gil you owe me."

Fang groans with disapproval then pays up the gil.

We brought Lightning back to camp, Vanille did some healing spells on her wounds and wraps her forehead in bandages. Lightning now lays on the softest grass we could find with her head resting on the chocobo's feathery body. Hope keeps a constant eye on Lightning, just waiting for her to wake up. Hope can't help but feel guilty for doing this. All he wanted to do was prove his strength, but all he ended up doing was nearly taking out her life.

All we can honestly do is wait and hope she'll be okay.

Hours have passed since Lightning's incident. The sun is already setting, Fang is working on cooking dinner while the rest of us are looking at Lightning and Hope from a distance. Hope hasn't left Lightning's side all day and it worries me, Snow and Vanille.

"He's been that way since the accident." Vanille says.

"Man, it's like he's possessed." Snow says.

"It's my relationship with me and my father all over again." I say.

Vanille turns to me and Snow. "Should we talk to him?"

"Let's give him a few more minutes." Snow says, and the rest of us agrees.

We all gather around the campfire watching the Sahagin being cooked. Hope looks down at Lightning with shame and guilt, the soldier girl is still out cold. He just watching her closed eyes, her chest slowly rising and falling, her head bandaged with little bit of blood seeping through the bandages. Hope still cannot believe what he had just done.

Hope grabs hold of Lightning's hand, holding right in front of him and begins crying. "I'm-I'm sorry, Lightning...I'm sorry...I didn't mean for this to happen...please forgive me...please come back."

Hope cries over Lightnings body. A minute later, he stops when he hears something coming from Lightning. He sits up, looking down at her face, noticing her eyes are beginning to open. Hope gasps slightly, he can't believe she's finally waking up.

"Guys! Guys!" Everyone jumps hearing Hope shouting. "Get over here!" We all shot up and rush to Hopes side.

We all look down noticing Lightning is beginning to wake up. "She's waking up." Vanille says.

Lightning slowly, carefully sits up. She struggles since her strength is currently weak. Halfway up, Lightning moans and puts a hand on her head. "Oh...my head."

Hope helps Lightning sit up. "Are you okay, Lightning?"

"Who's...who's Lightning?" Hope seems surprised to hear that. Lightning turns to look at Hope. "Who are you?"

All of us muttered with each other, except me. I move in front of Lightning, kneeling down. I place my hands on the sides of her head, looking directly into her eyes. She's not kidding, she really looks lost and confused.

"Just as I thought." I look back at the group. "Amnesia."

Vanille gasps, Snow seems surprised, Fang makes no expression and Sazh shook his head. "Who's Amnesia?" Lightning asks.

We all wondered what we're going to do. Lightning is our leader and now she has amnesia. We all gather around the campfire, leaving the clueless Lightning on the corner with the chocobo. Lightning does wonder about Snowflake, even constantly pokes her. Snowflake kwehs and looks at Lightning everytime she pokes Snowflake. We all eat our dinner and decide what we're gonna do.

"I can't believe she lost her memories." Hope says.

"Don't worry about it, Hope. These things happen." Vanille says. That's just like her, trying to cheer people up.

"Well, I'm with the kid. I mean...what are we gonna do?" Sazh says. "Lightning is our leader. Without her...I feel like we're just a bunch of wild dogs chasing our tails."

"Well, we'll just have to find someway to bring back her memories." Snow says.

For once, Villiers is right. While everyone else chatted, I decided to take Lightning away from the group for a moment. I figured I could help her remember some things.

"So, who am I?" Lightning asks.

"You're name is Lightning Farron." I tell her. "Well, actually, Lightning isn't your actual name. But you prefer to be called that way."

"Well...what's my real name?" Lightning asks confused.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know. But that's not important. My name is Patrick, I'm a close friend of Serah."

Lightning tilts her head to the side, looking lost. That's to be expected. "Who's...Serah?"

"You're sister." I suddenly remembered something. I reach into one of my bags, taking out a folded photo. I unfold it, and hand it to Lightning. "Here."

Lightning takes the photo, she looks to see a picture of Serah, smiling with her hands held behind her. Lightning looks at the picture curiously. Serah looks very familiar to her.

"Serah...My...sister?" Lightning says.

"Yes, that is correct." I say.

Lightning looks up at me. "Do I...have parents?"

I slowly shook my head. "I'm afraid not. Your parents died when you were young."

Lightning seems hurt to hear that, as if she just saw her own parents died right in front of her. "So...I'm an orphan?"

"I wouldn't say that. You're more on the lines of a guardian, since you're watching over Serah." I point out.

I get a terrible feeling. I turn to see Snow walking up to us, waving. "Hey, how's sis doing?"

I look at Snow bitterly. Lightning turns her attention to me, confused. "Sis? ...Is he my brother?"

"No. He's just some big doofus. Just ignore him." I stand up, walking off.

"What's with him?" Lightning asks.

"Uh...me and I have a complicated relationship." Snow explains. Snow looks at the direction where Hope's at by the campfire. "Hey...Lightning."

Lightning looks at Snow confused. "That's my name, right?"

"Yes. Anyways, you see that little boy over there?" Snow asks, pointing at Hope.

Lightning looks directly at Hope. "Yes...What about him?"

Snow smirks, this is the perfect opportunity to have a little fun for him. She wraps an arm over her shoulders, pulling Lightning close to him. "Let me tell you a little something about him."

While Snow is having his private conversation with Lightning, the rest of us are deciding what to do next. I told everyone I was able to have Lightning remember her family, and a little bit from Snow. At one point, we made the decision that one of us to keep a close eye on Lightning incase anything happens, and we all voted on Hope.

"WHAT!? Why me?!" Hope asks. He's not very pleased being chosen to babysit Lightning.

"It's your fault she's like this. Your mess, you clean." Fang says.

"I'm sort of with Fang on this." I say.

"Same here." Sazh says.

Hope sighs, disappointed. Vanille puts a hand on Hopes shoulder, trying to give the kind some confidence. "It'll be all right, you can do this."

Hope looks at Vanille, noticing her smile, then he smiles and nods. Whenever she smiles, it makes him happy. He really did mean it when he told her that it makes him happy when she smiles. Of course he was actually treating the whole thing like it was a big joke.

Snow and Lightning returns to the campfire. Snow sits next to Fang and Lightning sits next to Hope. Fang notices Snow smirking. "What are you smiling about?" Fang asks.

"You'll see. Just watch." Snow says.

Snow and Fang pays attention to Lightning. Hope just sits looking at the fire. At the corner of his eye, he sees Lightning. He slightly turns to see her, noticing she's staring at him. Hope starts to get uncomfortable about Lightning's staring. Hope faces Lightning, then notices she's...smiling, which makes him feels weird.

"Uh...Lightning? Are you-" Hope was cut off when, all at once, Lightning hugs him and plants her lips on his, kissing him.

Snows smile widens, Fang looks surprised then smirks as well. The rest of us are pretty shocked, gasping and dropping our food, like what we're seeing is something we would have never expected to see ever in a million years.

Lightning ends the kiss, Hope looks completely shocked and paralyzed, like he just saw a blood horror movie that completely scarred him for life.

"Wha-wha...what was that for?" Hope asks.

"Cause it's what we do, snuggle-bug." Lightning says, cheerfully.

Now THAT is completely shocking. It's as if Vanille is possessing Lightning. Fang quietly chuckles at Lightning's 'snuggle-bug' comment. I however, turn to Snow with a mean look, I know that he's somehow behind this. I turn back to Hope.

"Uh, Hope, why don't you and Lightning go for a little walk?" I suggest.

Hope seems uncomfortable with the idea, but Lightning answers for him. "That's a great idea. Come on, love!"

Lightning gets up and drags Hope with her. Hope begins to protest and tries to fight, but he can't escape it. When they're gone, I turn to Snow.

"Snow. What did you do?" I ask.

All eyes were on Snow. "Okay, well. I told Lightning that she is a lovely free-spirited girl..."

"Like Vanille?" Sazh asks, earning a laugh from Vanille.

"Yep, and she and Hope are in a very loving relationship...and that Hope has a massive crush on her." Snow finishes.

I was totally surprised to hear all of this. "You WHAT!? Why the hell would you do that?" I ask.

"What? Just thought it would be fun." Snow says in his defense.

I slap my head with my hand, groaning in annoyance. "Uh...are you sure that's a good idea?" Sazh asks. "I mean, once Lightning gets her memories back...she's gonna kill you...or Hope...or maybe both of yeas."

Snow shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I figured we could use some entertainment until then."

Fang chuckles. "Sure is entertaining for me. Hey, maybe I can convince Lightning she has a massive crush on Patrick."

I'm on angered alert hearing that. I stand at my feet, glaring at Fang. "If you dare do that, I'm gonna give you the Atomic Texas Wedgie!"

Snow is worried to hear that, Fang on the other hand is confused. I turn and make my leave. Fang turns to Snow. "An Atomic what?"

"Trust me, Fang. You don't want that." Snow looks over down his shoulder, gently rubbing his bottom. "I can still feel the burns."


	2. Training

**A/N: Would you say things are getting funny or silly? I might. Can you believe Snow would do something that stupid? I wonder if you should really blame him since Lightning's always cruel to him...oh, I would hate to see what he has in store for me if I ever have amnesia.**

* * *

We all spent the night asleep. Except for Hope, he's very uncomfortable. Lightning couldn't take her arms off of him. The girl even slept next to the kid, which makes Hope feel embarrassed. Apparently, Snow also told Lightning that they sleep together. I sure hope he didn't get any ideas about telling her that they usually...play dirty.

The sun raised, it's bright and early. We've decided to pick up camp and move on ahead. "Everybody ready?"

"Not everybody." We all turned to Hope, who's limping towards us with Lightning behind him, arms wrapped tightly around him. The boy can barely move with the soldier girl gripping him from behind. "A little help?"

Fang, Snow, Sazh and Vanille chuckled, giggled in Vanille's case. I walk up beside Hope and Lightning. "I'm on it."

I crack my knuckles. If there's one thing Serah told me about her sister, is that she has this pressure point on the side of her neck. I point my finger onto her neck, digging into it. Lightning grunts and flinches, losing her grip of Hope then falls back on the ground like a tree chopped off.

Hope looks back and down at Lightning, totally shocked. "Whoa." Hope turns to look at me. "How did you do that?"

I hold my one finger out. "Pressure point...Don't tell Lightning or Serah I showed yea."

Hope zipped his lips. Lightning sits up, confused. "What was that?"

"Uh...nothing." Hope says. He grabs Lightning's hands and pulls her to a stand.

Lightning hugs Hope once again. "Thank you, love."

I start to feel very pathetic seeing this. I grab Lightning by the back of her jacket and pulled her away, losing her grip on Hope. "Lightning, you know you're not actually in a relationship with the kid...and he doesn't have a crush on you."

"Of course I do." Lightning turns to Snow, pointing at him. "That Snow guy told me that I do. He also said not to listen to you when you tell me I don't."

And now I feel even more pathetic hearing that. I probably should have figured Snow would have done that. Lightning walks on ahead, Snow walks up and stands next to me.

"I knew you would try to interfere, which is why I warned her about you." Snow says.

I just roll my eyes onto Snow with a hostile look, then I put my hand on his face and shoved him away and then move on ahead.

We all leave the Aggra's Pasture and make our journey through the Central Expanse. We all decided that Hope should keep a close guard and watch over Lightning, even since the girl can barely leave his side. Lightning becomes worried and startled by the monsters crawling around the fields. This is nuts, the brave and strong Lightning acting like a coward. I know one thing we're gonna have to do when we set up camp: Reboot her soldier instincts.

Most of the time, Lightning was hiding behind the little boy, as if to use him as a shield. Hope just feels embarrassed about this. When I'm done shooting the monsters, I walk up to Hope and Lightning. Hope looks at me. "Am I being punished?"

I look past Hope, noticing how scared Lightning is. I sighed and pull Lightning out from hiding. "It'll be fine. We just need to give her soldier instincts a jump start."

Lightning gasps. "LOOK OUT!" Me and Hope turns to see a Beast leaping towards us.

Hope casts a Firaga spell at it and I shoot an arrow at it. Our attacks killed the beast, its body lands on the ground and slides in front of our feet. Lightning smiles and hugs Hope. "Oh, Hope! Thank you! You're my hero!" Lightning gives Hope a loud kiss on the check.

She lifts Hope from his feet and hugs him tighter. Hope looks at back past Lightning shoulder and mouths 'Help me'.

I just shrugged my shoulders and continue on ahead with the group.

We find a nice small lake and decided to take a break here. While everyone's resting, me, Hope and Fang decided to teach Lightning a thing or two about fighting. We find a clear spot away from the lake and took Lightning there.

Hope sits on a large rock watching as I speak to Lightning while Fang is readying herself for battle.

"Okay, Lightning. You may not remember it, but you are a soldier and you are an expert fighter." I say.

"I am?" Lightning asks.

I nod. "That's right." I grab the Gunblade from Lightnings holster, she's surprised to see it. "This here is your weapon, called 'The Gunblade'. It serves as both sword and weapon." I hand Lightning the weapon.

Lightning looks down at the sword. "I think...It's starting to came back to me."

"Very good, let's see how you'll do with it." I stand aside. "Face Fang."

I turn and sit next to Hope on the rock. "Do you think she'll be okay."

"In all honesty, I doubt it." I tell Hope.

Lightning just stands in place, looking down at her weapon confused. Fang positions herself, ready to attack, but starts impatient. "Anytime now, love." Fang says.

Lightning looks up at Fang then nods. Lightning positions herself then charges, or runs in that case. Lightning makes the strike, but Fang dodges. Lightning seems surprised to see Fang dodge her attack. Lightning makes two slow strikes, Fang blocks them, then Fang strikes Lightning by the legs with her spear, sweeping her off of her feet.

Lightning lays on the ground in defeat. For the past half hour, Fang has been kicking Lightnings butt. Everytime Lightning strikes, Fang either blocks, parries or disarms her and knocks her down.

After about twenty knock outs, I got up and end the fight. "All right, Fang. That's enough."

Fang smirks then backs up. I help Lightning stand up. "Sorry, I guess I'm not soldier material after all." Lightning says.

"No, you are. We just have to find another way to make a jump start." I think for a moment.

I know that Hope would be an easy fight, but I'd wither not since I figured she would spend most of the fight being all lovey-dovey on him, plus there's still the small matter of him causing her to lose her memories on the last fight. With no other opinions, I'm left with one other person.

"What? Why me?" Sazh asked.

I told Sazh to be a sparring partner for Lightning. "Cause you are old and your reflects are a little slow. Which makes you the perfect sparring partner for Lightning...in her condition at least."

"Okay, first off: That really hurt." Sazh says. "And secondly, give me one good reason why I should do this."

I lean in close to Sazh face. "How's this for a reason: I'll tell everyone about the Cactuar incident."

Sazh widens his eyes with worry, thinking back about that time:

_Me and Sazh are walking down the Eastern Tors, just doing a little bit of exploring. This was during the time when Hope was feeling sick and we had to set camp for the night. We just walk up the rocky cliff avoiding those giant Adamantortoises._

_"So let me get this straight: Your father became a l'Cie, but he failed his Focus and turned Cie'th?" Sazh asks._

_"That's right." I say._

_"Damn, that's pretty insane." Sazh says. "I'm surprised you're just living with that kind of burden."_

_"Well, it's not easy." I slowly places my hand on my left arm. "Trust me..."_

_"I know how it feels man. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Dajh turned Cie'th. I can't imagine what'll happen if he does." Sazh says._

_"Yeah, well, I just hope it didn't end up killing him. At least he completed his Focus." I say. "Anyways, Sazh. What I wanna know is what happened to your wife?"_

_Sazh takes a moment of silence, but then starts to get a strange feeling. We both look up at the top of the cliff, noticing a tiny Cactuar. __"What's that?" Sazh asks._

_"Some kind of...cactus?" I wondered._

_The Cactuar jumped down, jumping with a burst of energy. __"Chill out there greeny." Sazh says. The Cactuar runs around in circles at high speed, as if the creature has on Haste x5. __"Hey now! __Stop that already!" The Cactuar does stops, but just jumps taunting Sazh. __"Oh, you're asking for it now!" The Cactuar keeps on going. __"All right! That does it! __Come here, you!"_

_Sazh makes a jump on the Cactuar, but it zooms away. Sazh pretty much landed on the ground. Sazh gets on his hands and knees, looking at the Cactuar ahead. I chuckle from behind. "You're getting creamed by a plant." I say._

_Sazh looks back at me. "Just you wait, I'm gonna teach this weed a lesson." Sazh gets back on his feet, he takes out his guns and starts shooting at the Cactuar._

_Everytime he shoots, the Cactuar bursts at high speed. Sazh just can't seem to hit the creature. _"Oh, you think you're real hot stuff, don't yea!?" _The Cactuar zooms towards Sazh, bursting and running on and over his body. Sazh moves around and around trying to keep his eyes on the Cactuar. Eventually, Sazh starts to get dizzy. The Cactuar stands on Sazh's hair. Sazh looks up to see the plant. He reaches for it to grab it, but the Cactuar zooms off and Sazh falls back._

_The Cactuar flees. I walk up to Sazh, arms crossed and smirking. Sazh sits up, looking up at me. "Can we please not mention this to the others?"_

_I zipped my lips._

"All right, fine. I'll do it." Sazh says.

Sazh walks up into the field, facing Lightning. He takes out his guns, I get nervous taking notice. "Wait!"

Sazh looks at me as I take his pistols, and hand him my dagger. "Seriously?" Sazh asks.

"Just battle." I say, walking back.

Sazh shrugged his shoulders then positions himself to fight. Lightning does the same and she makes the attack. Me and Hope sit back and watch the fight. And how it ended...was something we didn't want to happen. Lightning got wiped, and Sazh barely did anything.

I sighed, shaking my head. "This can't really be happening."

Lightning gets back on her feet, wiping the dust off of her clothes. "I don't really think I'm fighting material at all."

"No, Lightning. We just need to try something else." I say.

"I might have something." Hope suggests.

Hope leaves us, while he does, Lightning chases after him like a crazy love bird. I grab Lightning by the collar of her jacket, holding her back. "Wait! Don't leave me, darling!"

I sigh in annoyance. "Honestly, I'm starting to believe Snow did this just to tick me off."

Hope shortly returns with a pile of rocks in his arms. Oh boy, I wonder what the kid has planned.

Hope sets the pile of rocks down on the ground, then he walks up to Lightning. "Okay. I have a theory on how we can awaken the soldier within you, Light."

"How's that?" Lightning asks sweetly.

"Uh...well, there was this method you tried to teach me...once." Hope clears his throat as he removes his neckerchief.

Hope wraps the neckerchief around Lightnings eyes, tying the ends behind her head. "Oh, this is a surprise? I like surprises." Lightning says.

"It's not exactly that." Hope says.

Hope walks about ten feet away. Fang leans close to me and whispers. "This should be fun."

Hope picks up one of the rocks from the pile by his feet. "I'm gonna throw these rocks at you, and you try to strike them."

Lightning seems confused, she even lifts the neckerchief up over her eyes. "But, Hope? How can I do that if I can't even see?"

"You see just by using your instincts." Hope says.

Lightning decided to go with it, then pulls the neckerchief back over her eyes. Hope begins throwing rocks, but that didn't really end up well. Lightning gets hit by it. Hope tries it again, but failed.

This goes on for about five minutes, I'm wondering if this is causing some bruises for Lightning. Hope throws the last rock at Lightning. As it flies towards her, Lightning strikes it.

Me and Fang had our jaws dropped seeing that. I don't know why I'm so surprised, then again, all day I have been seeing Lightning getting her butt whopped.

"All right!" Hope shouts.

Lightning removes the neckerchief. "Did I do it?"

"Yep." Hope says with a smile. Lightning cheers, like Vanille would do but jumping and claping and shouting 'yay!'.

Hope and Lightning spends the next few minutes doing this training method. Lightning's starting to do better at it, all though it's barely doing much progression with her fighting.

When training's over, we returned to camp and decided to move on ahead. I decided to teach Lightning how to ride a chocobo. Me, Sazh and Lightning stands beside Snowflake, Sazh tells Lightning everything he knows about chocobos, which is long and quickly boring. I'm trying to teach the girl how to ride, not bore her to death.

When Sazh was done, Lightning looks at Snowflake. "So...I'm suppose to ride this?"

"Her." I corrected Lightning. "And yea. It's easy. All you do is get up and command the Chocobo to move."

"Okay..." Lightning sounds unsure about this, but she goes ahead and gets on the chocobos back.

Lightning has a hard time getting on Snowflake, no surprise, but she manages to get on. Lightning grabs on the reins. "All right, giddy up!" Lightning says cheerful.

Snowflake doesn't obey, just looks at Lightning and kwehs confused. This goes one for about ten minutes, I'm starting to feel annoyed just watching this.

To my surprise and worries, I notice Lightning is about to kick her feet on the chocobos wings. "Wait! Don't! She doesn't-" Snowflake kwehs angrily and loud, and then jerks Lightning off of her. Lightning flies past me, I kept my eyes on her and watch the soldier girl crash against a wall. "Like...that..." I inhale sharply seeing Lightnings condition. Snowflake walks up to me, looking down at kwehing at me confused.

I turn to Snowflake, looking directly at the Chocobo. "Better hope she doesn't remember that when she gets her memories back."


	3. Mission Depression

**A/N: Well, nothing's are going well for Lightning, ain't it? How about that scene with Sazh and the Cactuar? Huh? It's damn funny, isn't it? Well, don't bother hoping to see that giant Cactuar, cause it's not happening.**

* * *

When Lightning was done recovering from the Snowflake incident, we decided to move on ahead. Luckily Snowflakes attack didn't make Lightning lose any of her refreshed memories. It's too bad for Hope though, the girl is still being all love birds on him.

We have decided to more Cie'th Stone missions. We're all mounted on Chocobos, well, Lightning's mounted with me on Snowflake. Though it was hard to get Lightning on the white chocobo cause she became afraid of Snowflake. How charming, Lightning becoming a scaredy cat...But I had to get her on Snowflake cause I wanna give Hope a break from Lightning.

We ride down the pass of Paddra, making our way to our next mission: The Freedom from Fear. Where we have to find and kill four Alraune's and a Zirnitra. When we arrive, we take on the little plants, they were an easy kill. We now focus our attacks on the Zirnitra.

Our battle against the Zirnitra is pretty insane. The darn beast is hitting us hard and is poisoning us, both the poison itself and weakening our defenses, and sometimes silencing us. "How do we stop this thing?" Sazh asks.

"How the hell should I know? Lightning's the one who plans the attacks!" Fang says.

Me and Fang looks back, to find the coward Lightning hiding behind a boulder from the fight. "Well it looks like our leader's a little busy." I say.

"Never fear! Your hero has a plan!" Snow cracks his knuckles, he yells and charges at the Zirnitra. Snow makes his strike at the Zirnitra, but the Zirnitra flies back, dodging the attack, then it dive strikes on Snow with it's razor sharp teeth.

Snow got hard pretty bad, he even collapses to the ground, unconscious. We all look down at the doofus, I smirk. "I'm liking this plan so far."

"Look out!" Vanille warns us.

Me and Fang looks up, seeing the large Wyvern sweeping its wings at us. Me and Fang jumps back, avoiding the attack just in time. "All right! I'd had just about enough of this!" Fang summons her l'Cie, the purple-orange check, and tosses it into the air. "Bahamut!"

The crystal glows brightly, and dark clouds take the skies and swirls. In the center of that swirl, Bahamut dives down. Near the ground, it shifts into it's dragon form and roars. "Let's tear them apart!" Fang says, charging at the Zirnitra.

Fang and Bahamut attacks the large Zirnitra while the rest of us stand back and watch the battle. After taking a few hits, Bahamut shifts into an air rider and Fang hops on. Bahamut and Fang attacks Zirnitra. In the end, Bahamut unleashes Mega Flare, blast a large energtic ball of blue fire, burning the Zirnitra to its death.

We were all impressed. Fang hops off the eidolon and Bahamut vanishes. "And that's how it's done." Fang says.

Lightning comes out of hiding, little a little nervous. "Is it over? Is the scary bird gone?"

I turn and sighed with irritation. Hope turns to Lightning and grabs hold of her hands. "Yeah. It's over."

Lightning smiles, she hugs Hope. "Oh, I'm so glad you're all right!" Lightning kisses Hope on the lips. I just feel disturbed seeing this. If Snow survives that attack from the Zirnitra, I'm gonna finish him.

After we completed our mission, we moved on to the next one. Snow was still unconscious, so me and Fang had to drag the 'hero' on the ground. We all returned to camp. Me, Sazh and Hope decided to go on ahead to do this mission while the girls stay with Snow.

As we leave, Lightning grabs Hope by the arm, pulling him back as if she doesn't want him to go. "Hope! Please don't leave me!" Lightning leans close to Hope, whispering while pointing at Fang and Vanille. "Not with these strange people."

Hope smiles. "Lightning, relax. They're good people." Hope turns his attention to Vanille and Fang. "Well, Vanille is. Fang on the other hand...can be a little sassy. But other then that, she's real friendly.

"Okay...I'll miss you, snuggle-bug." Lightning says.

Hope chuckles awkwardly and rubs the back of his neck. "Uh...I-I-I'll miss you too."

When Hope was done handling Lightning, he joins me and Sazh and we all moved on ahead. We traveled around Pulse, cutting down any of the monsters that dared to get in our way. It's too bad we don't have a Sentinel l'Cie member with us.

About an hour later, we still cannot find our target. We arrive at Eastern Tors, were we take a quick breather. I decided to teach Hope a thing or two about archery. I created a target on one of the cliffs. Hope had a few attempts with shooting, but they didn't even come close to hitting the target, not even close to the wall even. They all hit the ground.

Frustrated, Hope drops the bow at his feet. "Why is this so difficult!"

"Be patient, Hope. You don't master archery in a snap." I snapped my fingers saying that. "It takes years of training."

Hope sighs it calm down. "I'm sorry...I'm just stressing out. I just can't believe Snow tricked Lightning into thinking she's my girlfriend. This whole thing is crazy."

"No fooling. I'm okay seeing you two as like brother and sister. But see you two as a couple...especially a crazy one like Lightning is at the moment." I shudder at that part. "...It's just giving me the oogies."

"Oogies?" Hope asks.

"Don't ask. It's a bad feeling, just go with that." I say.

"I'll take your word for it." Hope says. "Anyways, I love lightning but...I don't love her that way."

I widen my eyes a little. I see what's going on. "I think I know what's going on...there's another girl, isn't it?"

"How can you tell?" Hope asks, surprised.

"It's just like Serah. Except it was more like worries cause she didn't know if Lightning would approve." I turn with a slightly disapproval look. "I know I certainly don't when I found out it was Villiers." I turn my attention back to Hope. "Anyways, who's the girl?"

Hope seems nervous. "If I tell you...you promise not to tell anyone...especially her?"

I look past Hope, I notice Sazh isn't paying attention to the conversation, then I turn back to Hope and nod. "I won't."

Hope takes a deep breath and speaks. "Okay...it's...Vanille." I raised an eyebrow. "Surprised?"

"Not really. I figured you two would be together." I say.

"Yeah...I just hope she'll feel the sameway. She probably thought I was actually messing with her when I told her it makes me happy when she smiles." Hope says.

I raised my eyebrows hearing that. "Wait. You told her that?" Hope nods. I turn my head away from Hope, speaking quietly. "Fang owes me 300 gil for that bet."

Hope is confused. "What was that?"

I turn my attention back to Hope, acting like nothing's happened. "Nothing. Go on."

"I want to tell her how I feel...but I'm afraid how she'll react...even since Lightning's going all crazy crushing on me." Hope says.

"I think telling Vanille your feelings is the least of your problems." I say. "Your real problem is how is Lightning gonna react when she gets her memories back."

Hope suddenly feels very nervous hearing that. "I certainly hope she doesn't kill me."

"Well I don't care she's the sister of my best friend, cause If she dares." I crack my knuckles. "She's gonna have to go through me."

Hope chuckles hearing that. I pick up my bow and all the arrows Hope fired, then we both approach Sazh. He's still standing there, looking away wondering. "Hey, Sazh. What's eating yea?" I asked.

"Hmm, I think our prickly green pest's back." Sazh says. Sazh looks up the cliff. "Come for other shoot of old Sazh have yea-" We all look to see a large Cactuar, about thirty feet tell. "SWEET MERCY!" All of us were in shocked, even me. The giant Cactuar hops off the cliff and lands on our ground level. "I don't believe we've met!" The giant Cactuar runs around in a circle. "I know that trot! It is you, isn't it?"

"Friend of yours, Sazh?" Hope asks.

"Seems that way. Ran into him when he was damn small." Sazh says. "Find your fertilizer didn't yea?" Sazh ask the giant Cactuar.

"I know plants grow, but THIS is ridiculous!" I say.

"Well size ain't nothing!" Sazh makes a jump on the cactuar, but it zoomed off. Sazh gets on his hands and knees, watching the giant plant running away. "Ran off again. Out ran by a Cactus, twice." Sazh stands up, looking down as well. "Oh no, head's spinning. Don't go hurling now."

The giant Cactuar sticks its head out, looking at us, then jumps up and runs towards us. "You playing with me? I'll wipe that smirk off your face!" Sazh takes out his pistols. "Teach you to mess with Sazh!"

Me and Hope take out our bow and boomerang and we both help Sazh with his battle against the Cactuar.

The giant Cactuar attacks us with 10,000 needles. That damn hurts. Not even our protection spells can be any helpful to reduce the damage. What's worse is the needles affects us with Fog and Pain, preventing our attacks and spells.

"All right! Time to bring out the big guns!" I say.

Sazh and Hope agrees. The three of us summons our eidolons: Omega Weapon, Alexander and Brynhildr. The eidolons appear and help us fight the monster. Hope spent most of his time in the Medic role healing me and Sazh. The giant Cactuar put up one heck of a fight, but it wasn't that impressive.

In the end, our eidolons switch into their Gestalt Modes. Omega Weapon into a Helicopter, Brynhildr into a race car and Alexander into a line of towers. All of us strikes at the giant Cactuar with our eidolon's abilities. The giant Cactuar takes it hard, but it's still standing.

We have no other choice, we all unleashed our special abilities: Omega Blast, Divine Judgement and Múspell Flame. We unleashed all of our power at once, our combine power wipes out the Cactuar. The eidolons vanish and we all celebrated our victory. We also realized that Cactuar was our target for our mission: The Bigger They Are...

"Woo! Serves you right!" Sazh shouts.

"All right, let's head back to camp." I say, walking ahead.

Sazh and Hope follows me back to camp. We fight any of the monsters that got in our way. They aren't really that much of a challenge. I guess that Cactuar battle toughen us up. We finally arrived at camp to find only Fang and Snow, who is now awake.

"Hey there." Fang says, waving. "How'd the mission go?"

"Rough. But we finished it." Hope says.

"I'll say. You won't believe the size of the Cactuar we had to face." Sazh says. "It was like that thing was stuffing itself with fertilizer!"

Snow and Fang chuckles at Sazh's comment. "Yeah, well facing that thing wasn't easy either." I looked around noticing someone missing. "Hey, where's Light?"

"She went with Vanille to learn how to use her l'Cie magic." Fang says.

I cross my arms and raise my right eyebrow. "Is that so?" I walk on ahead. "I'm gonna check it out."

I walk down the path heading to the Vallis Media. I noticed there are some killed creatures on the path, dead from offensive magic. Maybe Vanille was teaching Lightning a thing or two about magic.

I arrive at the Atzilut's Tears, the area where we found Hope collapsed by the waterfall when we arrived at Gran Pulse. I find the two girls by the stream, only instead of seeing Vanille teaching Lightning, I see her standing behind Lightning, doing her hair.

I stand at the distance listening closely. "It's nice to do another girl's hair. I hardly ever get to do this with Fang." Vanille says, wrapping Lightning's hair into a ponytail. "So, you really like Hope, don't you?"

I feel disgusted, just what I needed to hear: Girl talk about boys. "I course I do...or at least that's what I was told, that he and I are in a loving relationship." I starting to hope that Vanille would clear this up. "He is cute, isn't he?"

"So cute!" Vanille says, and they both squeal cheerfully. I guess I hoped wrong. The squealing seemed pretty stupid coming from Lightning, even under the conditions of amnesia. Well, at least Vanille thinks Hope is cute, maybe there's hope for her to return his feelings after all...

"So, Vanille. You have your eyes set on anyone?" Lightning asks.

"Hmm...No, not really." Vanille says.

"What about that Patrick guy? He's pretty cute, isn't he?" Lightning says.

I'm shocked to hear that. Even as a different person, it's surprising for Lightning to admit it. I also feel awkward, cause I'm not one to be in a relationship with, especially with someone as silly as Vanille. Sure, the girl is cute, but I'm not interested.

"He is, but I think we're too good as friends." Vanille says. "All though he did save my life a couple of times. The one I approached the most was when he saved me from sinking into quicksand."

I widen my eyes hearing that, I'm worried at what she's gonna say next. "Why's that?"

I walk my way to the girls as Vanille speaks. "I'm not sure why exactly, but if anything, I guess it's because after he pulled me out, he gave me a-" I give Vanille and iron grip on her hair, pulling her away as she cries in pain. "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!"

I drag Vanille to the wall, shove her in front of me, facing me. I grip her by her top, lifting her off of her feet. "I thought I told you to never mention that bathing scenario at all! I told you that little event never happened!"

Vanille is a little nervous, but isn't showing it. "Oh? Oh yeah, I know, I know. I just thought I'd tell Lightning and she would keep it a secret as well cause that's what-"

I get into Vanille's face. "Shut up! I swear, if you DARE mention it to anyone, ANYONE AT ALL! I'm gonna bury you back into that muddy pit so deep, if you're lucky enough to get out alive, you're going to be sneezing out mud for a month! Do you understand me!?"

Vanille yelped a little then nods. I release my grip, dropping to girl on the ground, then walk away. I grab Lightnings wrist, dragging her. "Come on, Light. Let's get you back to camp."

Vanille just sits back, watching me and Lightning leaving. When we're out of sight, she stands back up and follows us.


	4. The Power of Magic

**A/N: Ha ha ha. I got you guys right there when I said I wasn't gonna do the giant Cactuar scene, did I? What did you think of my little comment: "I know plants grow, but THIS is ridiculous!" That was good, wasn't it? I do feel bad for Vanille for threatening her back there...of course she did had it coming.**

* * *

The three of us walk back to camp. Vanille was able to catch up with us. As we walk, Lightning turns to me and asks. "What exactly did you do for Vanille?"

"Don't! Ask!" I say, irritated. After a moment of walking, I stopped and so does Lightning. "So, did Vanille teach you how to use magic?"

Lightning looks at me confused. "Magic? What's a magic?"

I sighed, shaking my head. "I should have known..." Vanille catches up to us, I look back at her disappointed. "Vanille! You said you were teaching Lightning how to use magic!"

Vanille seems surprised, then she gives an innocent smile and a soft giggle. "Uh...yeah...about that. I may have told...a teeny, tiny little lie."

"Why am I not surprised?" I asked, looking up to the sky. I sighed deeply, then look back at Lightning. "Okay. If you're going have to fight, you need to learn how to use magic."

"Okay...how do I do that?" Lightning asks.

That is a good question. How am I gonna teach her how to do magic? I can't do much of teaching Lightning how to do magic since I'm more on the lines of a physical attacker. But every little bit helps. And I don't trust Vanille and Snow to teach her, Fang's just as hopeless at teaching her as I am, I know Hope's going to be too much of a distraction for Lightning, thanks to that idiot Snow...not too sure about Sazh, though I suppose he could teach Lightning how to use Ravager magic.

When we return to camp, I take Lightning not too far out of the campsite. I find us some easy slug plants for us to use as practice dummies. "Okay, Lightning. Here's how it works." I roll up my sleeve, revealing my l'Cie in front of her. "Each of us has one of these brands, and these brands grant us the power to use magic." Lightning looks down my arm, I can tell she's staring at my scars. "Don't ask about my scars." I roll my sleeve down. "Anyways, to use magic, we concentrate and call our magic from our brands."

"Okay...how does that work?" Lightning asks.

"Well, I can only sure you one magic spell. Cause my spells are mostly strengthening allies and weakening our enemies." I say. "Yours is more on the lines of using offensive magic and healing spells. But we do have one common spell, known as 'Ruin'." I turn my direction at the slugs. "Observe."

I move my right hand to my brand on my arm. I concentrate, and a bolt of Ruin appears in my hand, and I launch it at the group of slugs, killing one of them. "Whoa. That's pretty cool." Lightning says.

"I know." The group of slugs were surprised to see one of them fall. I turn to Lightning. "Your turn."

Lightning looks at the visible skin on her left arm, noticing there's nothing, no brand. "I don't have a brand." Lightning says.

"That's because it's on your chest." I tell her. Lightning looks down at her chest, a little surprised. I look ahead, noticing that the plant slugs have spotted us. I can tell from the way they called out they know we're the ones who attacked them. "Might wanna try out your magic right now." I say with warning.

Lightning nods. The slug plants starts crawling towards us. Lightning moves her hand to her chest, concentrating. Lightning attempts to shoot a Ruin spell, but nothing happens. Lightning is surprised. She tries again, still nothing. The creatures are crawling closer.

"It's not working!" Lightning says, panicking. The girl rushes behind me, using me as a shield. "They're coming closer!"

I roll my eyes and sigh. "Oh great..." I make my stand against the slugs. I channel Saboteur magic in my hands. An outlined clock with the hands moving slowly appears, and I clap my hands on it, unleashing Slowga on the little creeps. The slugs move slowly, I repeat the same action, only the magic spell is a shattered shield. Deprotectga.

With the slugs slow and weak armored, I shift into Commando. I take out my throwing stars, my own version of Blitz, and I throw them at the slugs, killing them. I drop my arms and sigh, then I turn to Lightning. "You really need to stop acting like a scaredy cat. If you had your memories back, you'd be embarrassing yourself." I turn away and speak quietly. "I know it's embarrassing me."

Lightning looks down in shame. "Sorry. I know I'm weak and pathetic."

"Whatever, let's just try again." I say.

I have tried to teach Lightning the Ruin spell. So far, it's not doing so well. Every enemy we encounter, ends up the sameway: Her hiding behind me and I'm finishing them off. For the Behemoth one, I don't blame her, through it still irritates me cause I can't handle the beast alone. I can't even summon Omega cause he's still recharging from the Cactuar battle. I barely made it out of that battle alive.

We both return to the base camp, Lightning rushes to Hope and gives him a tight hug. The kid feels a bit uncomfortable. I on the other hand is in a bad mood. Training was simply pathetic. "So, how'd the training go?" Sazh asks.

"I don't want to talk about it!" I say, upset. I muttered angrily underneath my breath.

I walk past the group and towards the teleporting Cie'th stone. "Hey, where you're going?" Vanille asks.

"To the Sulyya Springs. I need to cool off." I touch the stone and a list of teleporting areas appeared. I selected Ceiling Sky at Sulyya Springs. I turn back to the work as the stone channels its power. "I do not wish to be disturbed!"

I float a few inches off the ground as I glow in bright light and vanish. The group watches my disappearance then turns back to each other. "What's with him?" Sazh asks.

"He's probably stressed out from teaching Lightning how to fight." Fang says.

"Either that or he's upset about my chat with Lightning." Vanille says.

"Why? What did you say to hear?" Snow asks.

"Oh...nothing I can say. It's a secret...between me and Patrick of course." Vanille says.

Snow, Sazh and Hope wondered what she meant, but Fang does. "So, uh...Lightning. Patrick taught you how to use magic?" Hope asks.

"He did...but I don't really think I'm doing well." Lightning looks down in sorrow. "I just feel so useless."

Hope comforts Lightning. "Oh, no, no. Of course you're not. You just...need a little help." Hope grabs Lightnings hands and drags her. "Come on, I'll teach you a few things about magic."

Hope takes Lightning to a tunnel west of the base camp. Lightning explained the situation she had when she was training with me. Hope decided that he should try to get Lightning to create some offensive magic before he could even get her into using them in combat.

"Okay, this one is easy. I believe this was your first spell." Hope channels his magic from his brand, and unleash a simple Thunder spell. A small lightning bolt strikes from the sky and hits the ground. "There. Should we easy enough. Now you try."

"I'm a little nervous." Lightning admits.

"Don't worry. You're going to do fine." Hope says.

Lightning nods then nods. "Okay." Lightning takes a deep breath, she moves her hand to her brand. Lightning takes the moment to concentrate, then reaches her hand out. Nothing happens. "Nothing..."

"Try again." Hope says.

Lightning sighs in depression. "What's the point? I'm useless."

"Don't say that, Lightning. You can do this. You just need to remember." Lightning looks up at Hope. "Try again."

Lightning hesitates. Then nods. She returns to her previous position, standing straight with her hand in front of her brand, eyes closed. "Think hard. Concentrate deep. Visualize yourself calling the Thunder spell from your brand, and then releasing it."

Lightning concentrates hard. After a minute, she raises out her hand, unleashing a Thunder spell. Lightning saw the lightning bolt strike and smiles. "I did!" She says with a cheer.

"Excellent!" Hope says clapping. "So...did it help?"

"I think so...I think it's all coming back to me." Lightning tries a few other spells. Fire, Water, Aero. She then starts to take it to the next level, then does Fira and Blizzara.

Hope seems a bit worried at all the magic Lightning's unleashing. "Uh, okay Lightning. Take it easy."

Lightning then unleashes a powerful Thunderga spell. Large bolts of lightning strike the ground multiple times. Some of them got too close. To her and Hope. Lightning staggers and falls back, shocked at the unleashed power. One of the lightning bolts hits Hope, electrocuting him.

The Thunderga spell ends. Hope is partly charred and smoking, with his hair standing up. The kid looks very dazed then he falls back, crashing onto the ground. "Hope!" Lightning rushes onto her Hopes side. She kneels down, holding him in her arms. "Hope! Hope! Answer me!"

Hope doesn't answer, for he is unconscious. Lightning panics, she can't believe this is happening. As she looks at Hope, she starts to have a vision. She sees herself in a strange city. Hope hands her the knife and speaks, but is muted. Lightning looked a mix of sad and worry, and she hugs the boy. Her words echo.

"You'll be okay. I'll keep you save."

Lightnings mind returns to reality. She gasps she the memory of that moment in Palumpolum returns. "That's right..." Lightning looks back at the unconscious Hope. "I made a promise...to protect you. But instead...I only hurt you." Lightning lifts Hope, she lays her head on his stomach, crying. "I'm...I'm so sorry, Hope."

Lightning realized this isn't the time for moaning. She lifts Hope, standing up, and runs as fast as she could back to the base camp. Everyone else was pretty shocked to see Hope injured, even Vanille. They lay Hope on the ground, Vanille works on her Medic skills to heal him while everyone else keeps Lightning away from Hope. Vanille can use the space.

"I can't believe I did this. This is all my fault." Lightning says, crying.

"Hey, don't sweet it." Sazh says. "These things happened. It's not your fault."

"He probably hates me now." Lightning says.

Snow gives Lightning a pat on the back. "Don't be silly, sis. Hope will always love you, no matter what!"

That doesn't really help her. Lightning walks up to Vanille and Hope. Lightning sits next to Vanille, looking down at the unconscious boy. "How's he doing?" Lightning asks.

Vanille turns to face Lightning, smiling. "It's all right. He's fine. Hope was teaching you how to use magic?" Lightning slowly nodded. "Well, I think it's time you know how to heal."

"How do I do that?" Lightning asks.

"It's simple." Vanille moves her hand to her thigh where her brand rests. "You call for a healing wave from your brand, and..." A small glow of light appears in Vanille's hand. She holds it out in front of her, then rests it on Hope. The healing light waves through Hopes body. Vanille turns to Lightning. "Do you want to try?"

"Uh...I don't know about this. I already hurt him. I don't want to make it any worse." Lightning says.

"Don't worry. It'll be fine." Vanille says. "Just concentrate, visualize yourself healing Hope...and think about a unicorn riding on a rainbow."

Lightning seems confused. "How's that suppose to help?"

"It relaxes your worries. Give it a try." Vanille says.

Lightning nods. She takes a deep breath. She rests her hand on her chest, concentrating. Visualizing herself healing Hope, and then pictured a unicorn riding on a rainbow. She smiles, Vanille's right, that does help. It's certainly helping with her magic, cause a healing light appears in her hand. Lightning rests it on Hopes body. The light heals him.

Hope twitches a little then moans. Lightning and Vanille notices, they gasp and look closely at him. Hope slightly opens his eyes. He sees Vanille and Lightning and smiles. "Hey...girls."

Lightning squeals with joy as she hugs Hope tightly. "YOU'RE ALIVE! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!"

Hope groans in pain as Lightning squeezes the life out of him. "Lightning, Light. I can't breath!"

Lightning realizes what she's doing and then releases the boy. "Oh, sorry."

"How are you feeling, Hope?" Vanille asks.

"Still pretty sore, but I'm okay." Hope lays back down. "Just need...to rest for a..." Hope is alway closing his eyes, quickly falling asleep.

"No! Hope! Please don't leave me!" Lightning pleads.

Vanille pulls Lightning back. "Don't worry. He's fine. He just needs some sleep, that's all."

Lightning sighs in relief. The next few hours were quite peaceful. Hope finally awakes, but he's starting to wish he hadn't, cause ever since he awaken, Lightning never left his side, and certainly haven't let him go. It was night time and Fang is cooking her Wilderness Gumbo.

I make my appearance from the Cie'th Stone. I'm much calmer. I yawn and stretch my arms in the air, hearing the sound of my joints and tight muscles cracking. "Ah...boy did I need that." I walk up to the group, joining them by the campfire. "Did I miss anything?"

Everyone told me I didn't miss much. I was however surprised to hear that Lightning's doing well with her magic. I have noticed that Lightning is holding onto Hope for dear life. I take it I missed nothing, since Lightning's still suffering amnesia.

"Okay, so Lightning's doing all right with magic. What about her fighting skills?" I ask.

"We haven't exactly gotten to teaching her how to fight." Snow says.

"We can't even get her to face an enemy without cowering in fear behind someone." Sazh says.

"No surprises there." I say with a sigh. "All right, first thing tomorrow morning, we're going to toughen up Lightning to fight. Hopefully that'll help her get her memories back."

After dinner, we all rest for the night. Lightning and Hope laid together. At first, he didn't mind, then gets uncomfortable when she cuddles with him. We really need to get her memories back, I'm starting to get tired of seeing lovely-dovey Lightning falling for Hope.

Curse you Snow Villiers!


	5. Awakening the Sleeping Soldier

**A/N: Can you blame me for stressing out back there? First Vanille almost spilled the beans about what I did for her back in the Final Fantasy XIII: My Mix story and then I couldn't get Lightning to learn how to summon her magic...then again, I wonder if that second one is really worth the stressing out since I'm more on the lines of a physical fighter.**

* * *

It's a sunny day on Gran Pulse. We all move on ahead, back into the Archylte Steppe. I figured that might be a nice place to teach Lightning how to fight, since it's crawling with wildlife beasts...maybe I should have thought this through, cause most of the travels, Lightning was hiding behind Hope.

I've had about enough of this. I dragged Lightning out of hiding. "Get a grip girl!" I slap Lightning in the face, knocking her worries away. "You are a soldier! Toughen up! Or at least stop hiding behind us."

"Sorry, I'm sorry." Lightning says, standing straight then gives a small bow.

"Peachy..." I say sarcastically.

Me and Hope takes Lightning to a group of Beasts that are just running around. "Ah, those will be perfect." I take out my bow, Hope takes out his boomerang. "One for each of us." Lightning gulps. She's pretty nervous at this. I turn back at Lightning. "No hiding or running away or anything, Farron! You either fight or die trying!"

Hope grabs me and pulls me down to his level. "Is that really the best way to say for a pep talk?"

"You got any other bright ideas?" I ask the kid.

"Good point." Hope releases me, then we attack the beasts. Hope does his Ravager magic on his while I'm doing my Saboteur spells on mine, then shoot it with my Commando attacks.

Lightning just stands in place frozen at the beast stands right in front of her, gazing at her and growling softly. It's like the beast is trying to play with his food. Me and Hope finishes with our beasts, while the last one is still standing in place, then it makes his pounce on her.

Lightning holds her sword in front of her to defend herself. The beast knocks her back. Now Lightning is on the ground, with the beast snapping its jaws right in front of her. Me and Hope just stand back watching the whole thing. Lightning tries to pull the beast back away from her, but her strength is failing.

"We should help her." Hope says.

Hope charges in, but I move my arm out in front of him, stopping and blocking him. "No. She needs to do this on her own." I say, not taking my eyes off of the fight.

The beast starts using its claws, scratching Lightning. Hope is worried to seeing Lightning's starting to bleed. "Patrick!" Hope moves out of the way and blasts an Aerora on the beast, knocking it away.

So much for my method of teaching Lightning how to fight.

I take out my bow, aiming it at the beast. I shoot it, ending it's life. Me and Hope stands in front of Lightning. Hope grabs her hands, pulling her into sitting up. "You okay?"

"I think so." Lightning says.

Hope starts healing up Lightnings wounds. I look down at her, arms crossed, disappointed. Lightning barely looks at me, she's ashamed. And she should be. "All you had to do was stab that thing with your weapon!" I say to Lightning. "Just how difficult is it to do such a damn thing!"

Her eyes are filling with tears as she breaks down in sorrow. "I-I'm so sorry...please."

Hope realizes that she's crying, then tries to comfort her. "Oh no, no, no. Please don't cry, Light."

I sigh and turn around. I take a look around the fields of Gran Pulse, wondering what I'm gonna do with the coward Lightning. We can teach her how use magic and a sword, but why can't we teach her how to fight?

"Uh, Patrick?" I turn around, widen my eyes open in surprise at seeing a large Behemoth coming up towards Hope and Lightning. "A little help here?"

The Behemoth roars at Lightning and Hope. Lightning crawls back away from the beast. I step up to face it. "Bring it on, ugly!" I shout at it.

The Behemoth swipe it's claw at us. I start shooting at it. Hope strengthens us with Bravery, Faith and Protect. Meanwhile Lightning is sitting back in fear. Me and Hope attack the Behemoth, the creature is getting stronger as we weaken it.

I look over my shoulder at Lightning. "Feel free to jump in anytime, Light!" I say.

Just to our luck, the Behemoth stands on its two legs, taking out a weapon and roaring. I hate it when they do that! The Behemoth knocks me out of the way, I crashed against a boulder and fall on the ground. Now it's just Hope facing the monster. Hope slowly backs up.

The Behemoth raises its foot and stomps on him. Lightning gasps seeing Hope in trouble. The Behemoth remove its foot from Hope. Hope groans in pain as he looks up at the large Behemoth. The Behemoth raises its buzz saw at Hope.

Lightning gets on her feet. "Get away from him!"

Lightning runs up to the Behemoth. She jumps, feet first, and knocks the Behemoth back with a powerful kick. Me and Hope gets up and joins together to watch Lightning tearing that Behemoth apart. I am completely caught by surprise. It's like I'm watching Vanille tearing the Behemoth limb from limb.

In the end, the Behemoth dies, and Lightning calms down. She looks confused, as if she has no idea what just happened. We stare at Lighting, eyes widen and jaws dropped. Lightning turns around to see the dead Behemoth, then looks at the blood-steined weapon in her hands.

"Did...Did I just do that?" Lightning asks.

Me and Hope slowly nods, silenced. "How...how did you do that?" I asked, shocked.

"I uh...I don't know." Lightning walks up to me and Hope. "I just saw Hope in trouble...that monster was about to kill him...next thing I know, I was seeing flames."

"Interesting..." I say.

We all return to the campsite. Hope gets some rest since he was crushed by a Behemoth. I take Lightning by a small hill, hiding from the rest of the group. We both have a private conversation about her outrageous attack against the Behemoth.

"So, what happened exactly?" I ask.

"I don't know. I just saw Hope in trouble...I got scared at losing him. But then...I got this strange feeling, it took control over me and caused me to attack the monster." Lightning explains.

I look down, my fingers on my chin thinking. "I see...So you saw Hope in danger and your incidents took over."

"Well, I do love him." Lightning says with a smile. "But...now that you mention it...I did remember this promise I made to protect him."

"So I've heard." I say. "Hmm...You think you can fight now?"

"I'm not sure." Lightning says.

"Well...let's find out." I stand up, Lightning does the same, but looking at me confused. I'm holding a rock behind my back, then I throw it at Lightning with high speed. "Think fast!" Lightning widens her eyes open. The rock was about three inches from her face when she ducks just before it could hit her. "No! No!" I walk up to Lightning. "You were suppose to use your weapon on it."

Lightning looks down in shame. "S-sorry...I guess I'm just useless."

Lightning walks away with shame. I just stay behind a hand over my eyes sighing. What am I gonna do with her?

Lightning now just spends her time sitting on a rock over the river, knees up, arms resting on her knees and looking down in despair. Me and Hope are behind the pillar from Lightning's sight. We are talking about the girl.

"So, even after what she did to that Behemoth, she can't defend herself against a rock?" Hope asks.

"Apparently. I mean, she told me she only faced that behemoth cause you were in danger." I say.

"Did it help her bring back any memories?" Hope asks.

I think for a moment. "Not much...but she did mention she remembers that promise she made to you. That she would keep you save...That gives me an idea."

"What is it?" Hope wonders.

"We need to give Lightning a reason to fight. With someone she's protective about." I say. "I mean, she did take down that Behemoth cause she's protective about you."

"So...you're saying I put myself in danger all the time until she gets use to fighting?" Hope asks with worry.

"Oh, no no no. Of course not. We just need to think of something to get her to fight." I say. Me and Hope thinks for a moment. I turn to the rest of the group, who's getting starting up dinner. I looked at Snow and smirked. "I think I have an idea for a target practice."

Me and Hope grabbed Lightning and we returned to the campsite to eat. Dinner went by slowly. Me and Hope waited patiently for time of opportunity. After dinner, we set begin settling in for the night. Snow is on the outskirts of the campsite gathering some firewood. Lightning is just sitting on a stump. Now's the time.

Me and Hope walks up behind Lightning, slowly at first. "Follow my lead." I whispered to Hope, then we move close to Lightning. "Hey, Light." Lightning turns to see us. "How are you doing?"

"Just fine, thank you." Lightning says with a smile.

"That's good to hear." Hope says.

Me and Hope seats next to each of Lightning's side. "Anyways, I think we should try sparring, see if we can get you into fighting."

Lightning holds her hands out in front of her, waving them. "Oh, no. There's no way I can do this."

"Of course you can. You just need the perfect partner." I say. I think and look around, until I spot Snow and point at him. "And I think he's the perfect partner."

Lightning looks at Snow. "Oh...Snow? But he's big and scary...in battling that is. Besides, he seems really nice."

Okay, now I'm starting to wish the real Lightning Farron would come back, cause calling Snow a nice guy is really out of line for her. "Is that what you think?" Lightning seems confused hearing that. I wrap my arm around her shoulder. "Lightning, do you remember your sister Serah?"

Lightning nods. "Yeah."

"Well...what if I tell you..." I smirked then look at Lightning. "He's interested in her?"

Lightning raised an eyebrow. "What?" From her tone, she's confused but I hear a tiny hint of aggression.

"Uh...yeah. He is." Hope says, earning Lightning's attention. "In fact, he's so interested, he's dating her."

"What?" Lightning asks, her tone raising.

"He's not just dating her. He's marrying her." I tell Lightning.

Lightning widens her eyes, shocked. "What!" I can hear her aggression raising.

"Oh yeah. They're getting married." Hope says. "And he's been going on and on and on on how they're gonna have a big family."

"What!?" Lightning says with aggression, then calms down in confusion. "Wait. What does that mean?"

I lean into Lightning's ear, whispering every single detail to her about what Snow meant about having a family with Serah. In the end, Lightning yells in total anger, and explosion sound effects happened in the background. "WHAT!?"

Like instant, Lightning zoomed out from her spot and heads towards Snow. She yells as she charges. Snow turns and looks surprised to see Lightning coming at him. The second he does, Lightning tackles him, knocking him and her down a crator.

Lightning starts beating the crap out of Snow. Me and Hope stands on the edge of the crator, looking down at the fight. "Did we go to far?" Hope asks.

"Are you kidding? This is the best day of my life." I say, smiling in amusement.

The rest of the gang stands beside us and watches the little scene happening down below. "Ow! Ow! Lightning! Light! Stop! Ow!"

"You want to make FAMILY with my sister!?" Lightning shouts as she beats Snow up. "I'll give you a family! Say hello to my siblings!" Lightning punches Snow rapidly. "And my cousin!" Lightning gives Snow a hard kick in the boot.

"What's going on down there?" Sazh asks.

"Nothing, just some...family bonding." I say.

We all just stand here watching the battle. Lightning is yelling in anger as Snow screams in pain and begging for mercy. This whole thing goes on for an hour. Everyone else is starting to get bored, or in Vanille's case worried.

Fang yawns. "Well, I'm bored seeing this."

"Yeah, I think we should cut him some slack." Sazh says.

"I'm starting to worry. What if she kills him?" Vanille says.

"I don't think she will. She always mentions he's too stubborn to die." Hope says. "But...I think he's had enough." Hope turns to facing me. "What do you think?"

I wasn't paying attention, I just cheer on for Lightning. "Yes! That's right! Beat the crap out of him! ...Go for the throat! Punch his nose! Yes! Yes! That's the way too..." I turn facing the group in amusement. All of them are giving me looks of disappointment and worry. Reading their thoughts, I sigh in disappointment, bummed at what I'm going have to do. "Oh all right."

I slide down the crator, walking up to Lightning as she strangles Snow, shaking him back and forth. I walk up behind Lightning, pinning my finger directly on the side of her neck. Pressure Point.

Lightning flinches and tenses up, releases her grip on Snow. "Okay, that's enough!" Lightning falls back, and I grab her by the collar of her jacket and drag her. "You've proven your point, he's had enough. Sadly." I said the last word in a silent whisper. I breathed it even.

I drag Lightning out of the crator, Vanille and Hope jumps into it to help Snow, who's on the ground bruised and bloody. If he had health points, he would be down to his last one.

Vanille and Hope carries Snow out of the crator, which is hard since it's like a slippery climb. When they brought him up, they did some healing spells on him. When they're done healing him, we're all tired and then crashed for the night.

The very next morning, Snow is recovering fine. At the crack of dawn, Hope and Lightning went out on the field of Gran Pulse, finding some creatures to battle. Lightning was able to find some encouragement. She's able to face and defeat her opponents without a single shred of fear.

"Great job." Hope says. "You're going a great job fighting."

Lightning looks at Hope with a smile. "Thanks. I'm really getting the hang of this."

"You certainly are. Keep it up and you'll be back to your old self in no time." Hope says.

"You know, I couldn't have done this alone. I did find a trick that helped me boost some confidence." Lightning says.

"Is that so? Well, what is it?" Hope asks.

"It's a secret." Lightning says.

"Oh, you don't have to keep secrets from me. I won't tell anyone." Hope says.

"Okay...here it goes." Lightning walks up to Hope until she's in front of him. She leans down to his level, looking him face to face still smiling. Hope feels a bit uncomfortable at this, but goes with it. "I got my memories back from when I was beating up Snow." Just like that, Lightning's smile disappears, replaced with a serious cold Lightning look.

Hopes eyes widen greatly, and he suddenly turns pale. Like he just saw the most scariest thing in the universe. The old Lightning is back. "Uh...Wow...that's...that's good...right?"

"Yeah." Lightning's tone is hostile and her glare is turning mean. "Real...good."

"Uh...err..." Hope takes step back. As he did, Lightning takes a step closer.

"So Hope...You know what's funny? When you get your memories back...you still remember everything that happened when you lost them." Lightning says.

Hope shallows hard. "Uh...yeah. That-that is pretty funny."

"Yeah. It is." Hope backs up until he hits a wall. Lightning now has him cornered. "So...did you also think it was funny...when we became a lovey-dovey couple!?"

Hope cowers, trying to protect himself by blocking his face with his arms. He speaks very fast. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I had nothing to do with it! I swear! It was all Snow's idea! I wanted nothing to do with it! Believe me! Please don't hurt me!"

Lightning raises her fist back, ready to knock Hope out like a light. Hope cowers in fear, closing his eyes so he doesn't see it coming. Hope waits for a while for the blow, nothing happens for a while but he doesn't calm down. What he expects a hard iron punch in the face, he instead receives a soft bump on the head.

Hope relaxes and opens his eyes, seeing Lightning calm. Hope's surprised. "You...you're not mad."

"No, I am." Lightning says. "But I'm mostly mad at Snow." Lightning leans into Hopes face. "Which is why I was beating him up for the past hour. I was going for two but then Patrick had to interfere."

Hope chuckles nervously. "Right...that was partly my fault. We all thought Snow had enough." Lightning sits on her knees in front of Hope. "But...aren't you mad at me for...the incident?"

"Yes, I'm mad at that too. But I'm mostly proud." Hope is surprised to hear that. "No one's ever knocked me out like that...it's actually quite impressive." Hope smiles hearing that. Lightning leans in looking serious. "But if you ever do that again, I will hurt you so much and hard, you're new home is going to be the hospital."

"I-I get it." Lightning smiles a little and ruffles the kids head. They both stand up, Lightning heads back to camp but stops hearing Hope. "Uh, Lightning?" Lightning looks back at Hope. "About us being a couple...can we pretend that never happened?"

Lightning shrugged her shoulders. "What never happened?"

Hope chuckles. He can tell that's a way of saying she agrees.


End file.
